Breaking Wave
by Verdreht
Summary: A missing girl has Steve running himself ragged. Danny always knew Steve was reckless, but this...this was a whole new level of stupid. Established relationship. Steve/Danny Slash
1. Chapter 1

Danny would've liked to say he was surprised to see a light on in HQ. After all, it was five-thirty in the morning, about two hours or so before the normal people came crawling in.

But then, Danny had never said Steve was normal. Which was probably at least a good start on explaining why, when Danny walked into the office, he found Steve standing over the table.

The rest of the explanation could probably be found in the dozens of papers and computer windows he was poring over. Danny couldn't see what was on them all that well, but he was assuming that they were pretty interesting, what with how Steve didn't even look up from them when Danny came in.

It wasn't until Danny cleared his throat – in that I'm intentionally being a loud asshole to get your attention sort of way – that Steve even seemed to realize he wasn't alone.

Under normal circumstances, that would've been the green light for Danny to start grinning and making smart remarks. Because hell, you just didn't catch Steve McGarrett unawares.

But these weren't normal circumstances, and though he wasn't happy about it, Danny knew exactly why Steve was there at this God-awful time in the morning. Which is why, instead of a smug remark or even a grin, he let out a sigh and crossed the rest of the distance to stand across the table from his red-eyed partner.

"So if I asked you've slept any since I saw you last, I'd just be wasting my breath, right?"

Steve shrugged.

"No, see, the correct answer here would be 'No, Danno, but I was just leaving.'"

Now, Steve just looked confused, like Danny had just grown a second head or suggested he take up knitting. He looked down at his watch, then back up at Danny with a look that was dangerously close to incredulous. "It's five-thirty," he said. "Why the hell would I be leaving."

Sometimes, it was a wonder Danny hadn't ripped out all his hair. "Because it's five-thirty, and you've been here since four in the morning _yesterday_," he said. And if it came out a little like a snarl, then it wasn't his fault. Really, he loved the guy, but Steve could frustrate the seven bells out of him. Though this time, he couldn't be as mad as he wanted to be.

They were working a kidnapping case. One of Steve's old buddies from high school had come home from his graveyard shift at work to find his wife tied up in the pantry and his little girl missing. The ransom note they'd found stabbed into the wall with a steak knife had understandably left them both in a panic.

Naturally, he'd called Steve.

Danny had actually been there when Steve got the call. He'd slept over, and he watched from the bed as Steve paced the room with the phone pressed to his ear at three in the morning. Apparently, Steve knew the little girl, too. A couple cook-outs, birthday parties…so, needless to say, Steve was invested. In a big way.

Danny could understand. Everyone knew he had a soft spot for cases where kids were involved, especially when it was a little girl…it just seemed like every time he saw the photos, he saw Grace's face.

Which is why he felt more sympathy than anything when he saw the deep dark circles under Steve's eyes and the tension in his shoulders. The case had kept Danny up last night, too…but at least he'd gotten enough of a break that he didn't look like he was about to drop. As it was, Steve looked about one missed dose of caffeine – the four or five empty Styrofoam cups scattered across the table hinted at a pretty regular pattern) – from keeling over. They'd had a hell of a work load the week before all of this happened, and Danny had actually been looking forward to a bit of a break. Him, Steve, steaks on the grill and beers on the table…

It had been a nice dream while it lasted, anyway.

Dream or not, though, this was ridiculous. Steve had been running on fumes before all of this. He knew Steve was devoted to this case, but he was going to hit the wall going like he was.

"Listen," he said, walking around the table to Steve and propping his hip on it. He had intentionally put himself between Steve and his work, hoping to at least keep his attention for a minute or two.

Steve, for one, looked torn between being irritated and amused. That resigned sort of amusement, like he knew what was coming, knew he wasn't getting out of it, knew he was going to ignore it, but thought it was cute that Danny tried.

…not that Danny'd had any experience in this sort of exchange before.

"Would you please just go home?" Danny said. Steve opened his mouth to protest, but Danny held up a hand. "Nonono…no…can I finish?"

Steve wisely shut his mouth, but if anything, he looked more entertained.

"Thank you. Now, since I know it would take a nuclear-grade explosion to get you to clear out of this place for more than an hour, and I don't have any nukes on hand, all I'm asking is that you run home, grab a shower, maybe something to eat that represents a couple of the other food gro—what? What are you smiling at?"

"Nothing, it's just…I think I know what it's like having a wife, now."

Danny raised an eyebrow. "Oh really? This—" he gestured between the two of them, "—is what you think it's like being married?" He let out a sort of snorted chuckle. "That's funny. Really, that's hilarious," he said, and then his face went dead serious and he pointed at the door. "Now go."

That seemed to be the "all kidding aside" moment, because Steve's face sobered. "I'm not going, Danno. I have a change of clothes here if it bothers you so much—"

"No, you wanna know what bothers me?" The question was rhetorical, and Steve luckily had the presence of mind to keep his mouth shut as Danny shifted his weight forward. If he was trying to be a little more imposing, it didn't really work, but that might've been because Steve just knew him too well. Still, Danny figured, with Steve knowing him so well, that he'd know that there were some fights it was just better to throw. "What bothers me is this one-man army schtick you're pulling."

Steve raised an eyebrow. "Shtick?"

"You know what I mean," Danny said. "I know it's hard to believe, but I can take care of things here for an hour or two while you go and…" he gestured up and down Steve's disheveled person, "…_revive_ yourself."

Pulling an indignant sort of face, Steve opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but Danny once again cut him off.

"Go, Superman. I'll hold down the Fortress of Solitude until you get back," he said, and to punctuate his point, he gave Steve a firm shove in the right direction.

It was times like this that he was reminded why women drooled over his partner. Shoving Steve in the chest was kind of like shoving solid steel covered in 100% cotton (light gray, crew-necked cotton, to be specific).

Steve, for his part, still didn't look sold. He really was bent on solving this case, and when Steve got bent on something, he could be damn stubborn.

Luckily for Danny, stubbornness wasn't something he lacked, either. And he liked to think he was a little sneakier than Steve.

Granted, a Mac truck full of exploding firecrackers was sneakier than Steve.

"Steve," he said, "if anything happens, I'll call you. Chin and Kono should be here soon; we'll take care of things until you get back."

Steve seemed to consider Danny's proposal, and it was a sure sign of just how wiped out he really was that finally, he sighed. "Call me if anything happens," he said.

That was Steve for, "Okay, yeah, you win, but I'm at least going to get something out of you."

And who was Danny to deny such a simple, albeit veiled request? He nodded and smiled. "Number one on my speed dial," he said, and after snagging a quick kiss, he turned Steve around by his shoulders. "And…march, two, three, four…"

"You're not funny."

"I'm hilarious."

"Just keep telling yourself that."

"Plan to. Now, I don't want to see that ruggedly handsome mug of yours around here until you've had breakfast, a shower, a change of clothes, and a shave."

Danny was actually relieved when Steve turned just past the door, a ghost of a grin forcing its way through the haggard worry that had lined his face since Danny came in that morning.

"You think I'm handsome?" he said.

Danny promptly closed the door in his face.


	2. Chapter 2

Sometimes, Steve got the eerie feeling that Danny knew him all too well. He liked to think he had his fair share of mystery – not really a deliberate thing; he just didn't generally do the whole "sharing and caring" thing = but then Danny had come along and turned the whole damn thing on its head. See, Danny _did_ do the "sharing and caring" thing, and didn't give a _pass_ option to Steve. Though lately, Steve had found he didn't mind it so much. Danny was…easy to open up to. He didn't have to worry about a reaction; Danny always said or did the right thing. Even if that meant saying or doing nothing at all: further proof that he knew too much.

Sure, logically he knew that Danny couldn't know everything about him…but it sure did feel like he did sometimes.

This morning had been a fine display of Danny's spider senses. He'd shown up early; Danny _never_ showed up early, what with Grace and his love of sleep. But there he'd been, standing in the doorway with his arms folded over his chest and his trademark "Why am I not surprised?" look on his face.

Steve had felt a little like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Which was ridiculous, he told himself, because he was a damn SEAL.

It didn't help. Because hell, he'd take getting chewed out by a drill sergeant, even one like Joe, over going a round with Danny when he had that look.

Danny had promptly read him the riot act – the abridged version, luckily – in that quippy little tongue of his that Steve still hadn't gotten tired of hearing about working through the night. Steve for one didn't really see what the big deal was; he'd spent the better part of whole weeks awake on missions back when he was on active duty. Compared to that, a night in the office was a walk in the park.

Besides, even if he'd gone home, he wouldn't have been able to sleep. Not with Jenna out there somewhere with a bunch of criminals. There was no telling what was going on, and Steve didn't like that. He needed to know what they were dealing with; he needed to know how to get Jenna home safe.

He'd actually gotten a lot done in that regard, too. He'd narrowed down possible hideouts to three in the area, two on the eastern end of the island and one on the west. Each was denoted on the map on the table by a used-but-empty coffee cup, because they'd been more convenient than pulling up the tool bar for the pen and he hadn't felt like making the trip to the trash can.

When Danny sent him off, he'd made sure Danny knew where to pick up where he left off, and when the others had gotten there an hour or so later, he'd passed it along to them.

Meanwhile, Steve had gone home, showered, shaved, and changed just as Danny had ordered. After a short fight with the water heater – it had never been the same after his house got shot up – he'd been on his way.

He'd barely even made it to the main road before he got a call from Danny.

"You find something?" he said. Because he was a cut-to-the-chase sort of guy.

He heard Danny snort on the other end. _"I'm fine, Steve, thanks. Welcome back to the world of the polysyllabic. We're doing—"_

"Steve."

Because there was a time for Danny's lip, and then there wasn't.

_"We're working on it." _

"And you're calling to…" Steve left it open for Danny to finish it; he would have to, because Steve didn't have the faintest idea.

_"To ask a favor?"_

"Is that a question or an answer?"

_"Yes. Coffee. We need coffee. Because apparently, some vandal broke in and drank all ours. Left the cups all over the place, too." _

A lesser man might've blushed. Steve _normally_ would've argued. But he hadn't slept, his nerves were on edge, and he did feel a little bit guilty for chugging all the coffee. Besides, he was already out; it made more sense for him to pick some up on the way in.

"Alright…I'll be there in a half hour.


	3. Chapter 3

Only, he never quite made it back to HQ. Not ten minutes after Danny hung up the phone from talking to Steve, they got a call back from HPD about the surveillance details they had on the warehouses. It seemed like they'd found the right one: the one on the other side of the island.

Danny was just walking in from Steve's office – he'd been taking a call from the police chief, organizing their plan of attack – when he saw Kono hang up the phone.

"Who was that?" Danny said. He figured it was probably more news from the case.

"Steve."

Danny felt something tighten in his chest.

"I was just giving him the update on the case."

"What did he say?"

Maybe it was something in his voice, or maybe Kono was just perceptive like that, but she seemed to realize something was wrong. Her brows knotted. "He said for us to get there as soon as we could…."

"Shit."

Chin looked over from where he was pulling on his Kevlar vest. Because apparently, it was going to be that kind of day. "What is it?" But before Danny could answer, it seemed to don on him. "You don't think he'll go in without us, do you?"

The only answer Danny gave him was a look before he grabbed his own vest and ran for the door.

Danny tried three times to get a hold of Steve on the ride to the warehouse. They were a good half hour out, as compared to the fifteen or so minutes it would've taken Steve to get there from where he was. That worried Danny. Whatever was going to happen in there, chances were it would take place in under fifteen minutes. If Steve really had gone in, there was a pretty high likelihood that things would be over before they got there.

And he was right. By the time they were pulling into the lot at the warehouse, squad cars and police had swarmed the place. The three or four ambulances he saw there set what few nerves he had left on edge, and the coroners added salt to the wound.

Danny was out of the car before Chin even came to a stop, pushing his way past cops to get to the front of the building. Already, he could see guys getting led away in handcuffs, and things seemed to be in the cleanup stages. So, that meant things were clear, which left Danny with one question: where the hell was Steve?

He reasoned that he might not even be there. Maybe he'd gotten caught up. Maybe he hadn't made it there yet. Or maybe he was off talking to one of the cops.

Of course, then the part of Danny's mind that was more prone to panic started chiming in. maybe Steve _had_ gotten there. Maybe he was inside, shot to hell and riddled with holes like the walls of the warehouse. Maybe he was in an ambulance on his way to the hospital, or hell, maybe he was in one of those black bags he saw getting carted out.

Heart officially pounding, Danny made his way over to the nearest guy in a univorm that looked like he knew what was going on.

"'Scuse me," he said, tapping the guy's shoulder to get his attention. Once he had it, he flashed his badge. "Danny Williams, Five-0."

"Lieutenant Peters. What can I do for you?"

"You haven't by any chance seen a friend of mine…about yay high, walks around with a scowl on his face and a crazy look in his eyes? Probably doing something insane and/or suicidal…ring any bells?"

"You mean Commander McGarrett?"

Danny snapped his fingers. "That's the one."

The cop didn't say anything. Instead, he pointed directly over Danny's shoulder. Sure enough, when he turned, he saw Steve sitting right behind him. Normally, he might've even been a bit embarrassed, only the fact that where Steve was sitting happened to be _in the back of an ambulance_ kind of muted it.

Steve didn't seem to have the same problem. "Insane _and_ suicidal, huh? He said as Danny came over. "That hurts Danno. Really."

"Says the man in an ambulance." Danny turned to the paramedic standing off to the side. What's the damage, doc?"

"As far as I can tell, just a couple cuts and bruises." The worst of which looked to be on his boyfriend's face, Danny noted. At least, he hoped that was the worst of it, because the gnarly-looking cut and quickly-swelling bruise straddling Steve's left cheekbone looked pretty damn bad.

"Is he gonna make it?"

"Well," said the paramedic, "I'd prefer if he came with me and got a real check-up, but—"

The paramedic's words were cut short as Steve stood, pulling his vest back on over his black t-shirt as he did.

"Whoa, whoa, where do you think you're going, huh? Sit down."

"She wasn't here, Danno," Steve said. "We need to go."

"To the hospital, yes. That's a terrific idea. I'll drive."

"To the marina." Steve brushed by Danny, and Danny flashed the paramedic an apologetic look before falling in step beside him.

"I still don't know the lay of the land as well as you do, but I'm pretty sure all they have are boats at the marina, and I don't think boats are gonna do anything to fix that—" he gestured at his face, "—up any."

"I talked to one of the perps after the raid was over. He told me they were taking the girl to the marina. She'll be on the Bello Rouge."

Danny didn't want to think about what Steve had done to the guy _before_ he told him where they were taking the girl, but he trusted the intel. Steve was the smartest guy he knew, for all his leap-before-you-look habits. If he was confident in the lead, then Danny would follow him.

So, too, would Chin and Kono, apparently. It took one nod from Steve towards their car and they were piling in. Steve and Danny, on the other hand, took Steve's Silvarado.

Still, as he was pulling out, Danny couldn't help looking over at Steve in the passenger seat and asking, "Are you sure you're good? 'cause me and the others can handle it if you want to hitch a ride to the hospital."

"I'm fine," Steve said. "Just drive. We have to get there before they sail."

There was something in his tone of voice, in the set of his jaw and the way his eyes stayed hard and set dead ahead, that left no room for any sort of argument. So, he didn't try. Instead, he set his sights on the road and pushed the pedal down just a little harder.


	4. Chapter 4

It was a good thing Steve seemed to know where he was going when they got to the marina, because Danny had no clue. As it was, he followed Steve – and Kono and Chin followed him – as the taller man ran like hell itself was behind him all the way across the dock.

Danny heard the increasingly-familiar sound of boat engines bubbling as they ran…something felt wrong. He didn't know what it was exactly, but it was something.

And then he found out what.

"Damn it!" Steve said, and Danny had to slam on the breaks to keep from slamming into Steve. The man had come to a stop and was staring around the docks. Beside him was an empty boat lot.

"What's the matter?" Though Danny suspected he already knew.

"This is where he said it would be. This is where the boat should be. It's already left!"

"Uh, boss, I wouldn't be so sure about that."

Steve and Danny both turned to see Chin pointing off down the docks.

Just ahead of them, on its way out of the marina, was a cabin cruiser. And printed across the back, in massive red letters, was the name _Bello Rouge._

Danny didn't even have to see Steve's face to know what he was about to do. "Steve…" he said, but it was too late.

Steve was off.

"…wait."

And Danny was off right after him.

Danny'd always thought Steve's long legs were sexy. It wasn't until times like this that he was reminded that they could also be very annoying. See, with those long legs, it was that much easier for him to run off and do something stupid.

It was also that much harder for Danny to catch up in time to slap some sense into him.

Which is why, when Steve took a running leap off the edge of the dock, Danny had no choice but to follow him. Together, they landed on the boat just as it sped away.

Danny, surprisingly, was the first to recover from the less-than-comfy landing. He sat up on his knees, gun drawn, and moved over to where Steve had managed to roll to. "You okay?" he said, a hand on Steve's chest.

Steve nodded as he sat up, though something told Danny the affirmative wasn't quite as honest as he'd have liked it to be. He'd gotten much better at reading Steve's expressions, and this one said he was in pain, even if he was trying to hide it.

All the same, he didn't get much time to deal with it. Apparently, their arrival hadn't been as quiet as it could have been, and before either of them could really get their bearings, they were both dodging bullets from the three guys that had come to welcome them aboard.

Actually, it was more Steve lunging forward behind the corner and dragging Danny along with him, but…well, semantics.

"Got a plan?" Danny asked as bullets pinged off the corner of the cabin. Of course, the thugs weren't the only ones firing. From their hiding place, Danny could see Chin and Kono firing off a few rounds while the boat was close enough. Eventually, he heard one guy let out a cry and heard a heavy thud.

"I take one, you take the other," Steve said.

"Got a better plan?"

Steve's response came in the form of his turning around the corner and firing off a few rounds. Since Danny couldn't leave him hanging – even if he might've deserved it – he came out beside him and put some holes in the guy Steve hadn't just put down.

With all three down, they broke to check for weapons and pulses. Kicking away all of the former and finding none of the latter, they rejoined in the middle of the deck.

"You go find the girl, and I'll stop the boat," Steve said.

Danny, for one, didn't like the idea of getting separated, but he realized it was also probably their best shot. No doubt everyone on the boat knew they were there, so time was of the essence.

"Be careful," Danny said.

Steve smiled that cheekily reassuring smile of his. "I always am," he said, and then he started up the ladder to the top of the cabin where the controls were.

"Why doesn't that make me feel better?" Danny said to himself, but likewise, he took off through the cabin to the wheelhouse. He figured the girl would probably be locked up in there somewhere.

Nerves on edge and gun at the ready, he made his way inside. He didn't hear anything, but a bulletproof vest didn't mean a slug to the chest didn't hurt like a bitch and a slug to the head wouldn't kill you, so it paid to be careful.

He searched the first room, but he didn't find anything. From what he could tell, it was sort of like a living room-type area, complete with poker table. If he'd been looking for half-empty scotch glasses and fake poker chips, he would've hit the jackpot, but in his search for the little girl, he was 0 for 1.

There were two doors in the room: one of them led to the bathroom, and the other led to a small hallway. Since he checked the bathroom and didn't find anything other than a razorblade and a fine dusting of white powder, it seemed to him like the other door was the best option.

So, he went through it. The hallway was so small, he had to tuck his elbows in to get through it, and if he'd been Steve's height, he would've had to duck. As it was, it made him nervous. If someone came in behind him, it would be damn hard to turn around. On the plus side, there couldn't be more than one person coming at him from the same direction.

He'd been around Steve too much. He was starting to think like a tactician.

Either way, the thought made him move a little quicker through the short hall and down the steps at the end. They circled down to what he assumed was like the basement of the boat – Steve could probably have told him the technical term for it, if he'd been around to ask – and finally to a door.

Before he opened it, Danny put his ear to it. If there was someone behind that door, he wanted to know before he went throwing it open. Sure, eh could probably get the jump on them, but if there was a little girl in there, he didn't want bullets flying around her. That was a good way to get an innocent hurt, and that was a risk Danny just couldn't take.

However, listen as he might, he didn't hear a damn thing over the hum of the engine and the sound of the water. And when he finally just pushed the door open, all he saw was an empty bedroom with a tiny bunk and a drawer.

The little girl wasn't there.

That meant one of two things: a) she wasn't on the boat at all; or b) she was…

_Thud._

The sound came from above Danny's head. From the top of the boat, it sounded like. From where Steve had gone when he—

"Shit!"


	5. Chapter 5

It was just too much. First the little girl in trouble, and then Steve being in trouble…it was too much for Danny's frayed nerves to handle.

At least, that was how he explained walking straight into a showdown. Like an idiot or a rookie or, God forbid, like Steve, he'd run in without a thought as to what he was running in_to_.

As it happened, what he was running into was some sort of hostage situation-turned-OK Corral. There was a man dead on the ground behind the wheel, presumably the man responsible for steering the boat. But what was rather more pressing was the swearing, middle-aged Samoan man holding a gun to Emma's head. From the sweat on his face and the panicked look in his bloodshot eyes, things were not going as he planned and he wasn't handling it well.

For a moment, Danny wondered where Steve was.

And then he found him.

Steve was on the ground, leaning against the half-wall of the top deck opposite the perp. At first, there didn't seem to be any reason for him to be there, but then Danny caught sight of the rapidly-spreading stain of red on the left thigh of his khaki pants.

He'd been shot, Danny realized. He wasn't sure who by, but that wasn't a good sign.

Neither, he decided, was the fact that the bad guy's gun was now pointed his direction.

"Danny, get back," Steve said, his voice still solid and firm, if a little tense from pain. Danny didn't blame him; he'd been shot before, and it wasn't an experience he cared to repeat.

"Move, and you're dead," said the kidnapper.

"You heard the man," Danny said. And he made a very convincing argument. "You okay, Steve?"

"Stop talking!" The kidnapper seemed increasingly frantic. If Danny had to take a guess, he'd say he'd found the tweak responsible for the coke trail in the bathroom.

"Alright," Danny said, because it didn't seem to him like Steve was in much condition to be the speaker in this particular exchange. He had this look on his face…through the grimace, there was a sort of disorientation. Danny wasn't sure if he might be going into shock or what, but it didn't look good.

"And put the gun down. Now! Away from you. Kick it away." The man's words were quick and clipped, and his hand shook around the gun he still had aimed at Danny.

"Okay." Danny didn't particularly like the idea, but he also wasn't going to argue with the guy holding the gun and the hostage. "Okay, I'm putting the gun down."

And it was as he was stooping to do so that shit went down.

Danny wasn't sure how he did it – a little McGarrett magic – but Steve somehow managed to pull a knife from one of the dozen places he stashed them and launched it straight into the guy's shoulder.

Because the guy hadn't tracked Danny with the gun as he stooped, the bullet he fired on reflex shot right over Danny's head. Steve's knife in his opposite shoulder also managed to loosen his hold on Emma enough for her to break loose and run to Danny.

Of course, then he recovered. He raised his gun, and Danny once again found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

But then, the very moment the girl reached him, a solid black shape slammed into the kidnapper. Danny recognized it as Steve just in time to watch them both tumble over the side of the boat.

By the time Danny made it over to the edge of the boat, all he could see was the ripple from where they'd hit the water.

"Steve!" he called, but still, there was nothing.

Chin and Kono must've seen the same thing from the docks, because the very next moment, he saw Chin diving into the water, presumably to fish him out of the water.

With a man on that job, Danny turned to the job he still had to do. Kneeling down and putting a hand on either of the Emma's shoulders, he spoke to her quickly. "I need you to stay right here," he said. He could already see the police cars pulling up; it would only be a matter of time before there were some guys coming out on a dingy or two, and he needed her out of the way. "Can you do that for me?"

Emma nodded, and Danny forced a smile for her sake. "Okay," he said, and started immediately down the ladder. On the main deck, he ran around to the back, closest to where Steve had fallen, and searched for any sign of Chin or Steve.

For a long, heart-pounding moment, there was nothing, but then…

There. Just a few yards out, he saw two forms surface. He recognized Chin, first, and in front of him, there was Steve. The relief was so great, Danny nearly lost it for a second, but he steeled himself and ran for the side of the boat. Chin was heading back to the dock with Steve – probably because it was closer – and Kono was waiting there to help him bring the boat back in the few yards it had made it out before the engine had cut off.

Together, they got it tied off, just in time for Kono to jump onto the boat, presumably to take care of Emma, and for Danny to jump down onto the dock and run to the ladder to help Chin get Steve in. He figured, his Super Seal being the tank that he was, that Chin might need some help.

He realized as they got a little closer that it would definitely be the case, because from the looks of things, Steve was unconscious. A spike of panic lanced through Danny's chest, but he forced it down. He had to stay calm.

"Here, I've got him," Danny said as Chin reached the ladder. His knee ached from the hard landing and harder wood of the dock, but he didn't care. The wakes were mercifully small, and it wasn't all that hard for Chin to get Steve close enough for Danny to grab him. Taking him by the back of the vest, he got him up enough to get his hands underneath his arms.

With Chin standing on the ladder and Danny helping from above, the two of them managed to get Steve's unconscious form up on to the dock.

As soon as they got him onto the dock, both Chin and Danny set to work. His vest had to go, and Chin worked on getting rid of it while Danny checked for a pulse and checked his breathing.

"Nothing," Danny said. "He's not breathing." As he spoke, he pressed the heel of his palm into the center of Steve's chest. Push. Rise. Push. Rise. Aloud, he counted to thirty, because everything else was too quiet and he had to break the silence.

After the thirty, he dropped his face back down over Steve's, listening intently for any breaths.

He heard nothing. He felt nothing.

Danny felt his chest tighten, but he forced himself to work through it. Taking in a breath, he pressed his lips to Steve's, breathing once, twice.

Still nothing.

Chin and Danny shared a look, but Danny broke it and went back to work. Hands poised over Steve's chest, he started the compressions again. Each second that ticked by seemed like an eternity, and Danny prayed in his head to every god he'd never believed in before that moment.

And then finally, it happened. A cough. A weak sputter, the flutter of eyes. Chin helped Danny roll Steve over onto his side, and sure enough, water spilled from Steve's blue-tinted lips.

Of course, that wasn't the only thing that spilled. Be it the gagging or something else, Steve also threw up what little he'd had for breakfast that day.

Danny noted vaguely that it smelled a little like coffee.

As soon as Steve managed to remember how to breathe again, they rolled him over onto his back. Which, as it turned out, was a lot harder than Danny thought it'd be, because as soon as Steve really started to come to, he started trying to get up.

Danny stopped him with a hand on his chest. "Easy, babe," he said, pushing Steve back to the deck as best he could. "You don't have anywhere else you need to be."

But Steve didn't seem convinced. Still coughing, still shaking, still disoriented, he grabbed hold of Danny's upper arm with a hand and tried to pull himself up. "Where…?" He coughed again, sniffed, coughed some more. Even through the persistent sputtering, though, Danny could make out the confusion. The worry. "Emma—where—" He looked around and seemed to get more agitated each moment he didn't see her.

"Hey, hey…she's fine. Kono's taking care of her," Danny said. He gave the words a moment to sink in before he started carefully easing Steve back down. Mercifully, this time, he went, though he still had this dazed look about him that made Danny wonder if he really understood of he was just too muddled to keep up.

Whatever it was, something wasn't sitting right. That confusion wasn't just Steve being a little rattled; Steve didn't _do_ rattled. And Danny hadn't plunged into it, sure, but he didn't think the water was cold enough to account for the blue tint to his partner's lips and the constant shivers coursing through his body.

"He's going into shock," Chin said, voicing the thought that had already crossed Danny's mind.

Danny nodded, trying to force back the tightness in his chest. "He's been shot."

That seemed to be the first Chin saw of the rapidly-spreading red stain on Steve's cargos, and he let out what Danny guessed was probably a curse. He'd heard Steve use it before.

"Hang on – I'll tie it," Chin said. As he spoke, he ripped off a piece of his shirt.

That, however, seemed to be the thing to snap Steve out of his shock-induced head space. He started trying to sit up again, one arm going for his leg as he did. He'd only made it about an inch off the ground, though, before a ragged gasp broke from his lips.

"Hang on, babe. You've probably got some broken ribs." He should know; he'd felt them shift under his hands when he'd been doing the compressions.

"You're gonna need to hold him," Chin said. He was pulling off his belt, and it didn't take a genius to know what he was getting ready to do.

Danny felt sick to his stomach. Steve was already in so much pain – he could tell it just by looking at him, even through his usual stone-faced feel-no-pain shtick. And this…this would be another level.

Since Danny had apparently missed the lesson in his emergency response class that went over how exactly to restrain your boyfriend when he was going into shock with broken ribs and God only knew what else, he had to wing it. He figured he needed to find a way to hold Steve's chest and pin his arms without pushing down on him anymore, and the only way he could think of to accomplish that with the height and wingspan differences would be to prop him up a little. It seemed to be what Steve wanted, anyway, to sit up, and the body heat might help with the shock. Three birds with one stone, as far as he was concerned.

Carefully as he could manage, he eased Steve up enough to slide in behind him, and then he pulled him back to lean against his chest. He himself was leaning against a post on the dock, and with his legs stretched out on either side of Steve's hips and his arms barred across Steve's, pinning them to his chest, he figured they were as situated as they were going to get.

"Danno…" Steve's voice was even and his face was set hard, but Danny knew better. He could see it in his eyes, the uneasiness, and his breath kept catching. How much of that was pain and how much of it was nerves was anyone's guess, but it didn't really matter. They had to stop the bleeding before the ambulance got there.

"You're alright, Sasquatch. We're gonna get you fixed up," Danny said, and with a silent prayer to anyone that might've been listening, he nodded to Chin.

Chin's face was grim as he slid the belt under the back of Steve's thigh. Even the slight movement sent a jolt of pain through Steve that brought forth a choked-back grunt as he pressed his head back against Danny's shoulder.

Danny felt the fingers of one of Steve's hands close around his own, and he gave them a reassuring squeeze. "Hang in there, babe."

It was easier said than done, though, and as Chin positioned the ball of fabric he'd torn from his shirt over the wound, Steve tensed so much Danny thought he might snap.

"Take a deep breath," Chin said.

It was hard to tell if Steve actually did. His ribs probably wouldn't accommodate too deep a breath. Danny only felt a bit of a rise before all the air in Steve's body seemed to leave him in a ragged scream as Chin pressed the cloth to the wound.

With quick hands, Chin pulled the belt tight over the fabric and lashed it in place.

As Chin sat back, Danny shot him a look. This wasn't good. This wasn't right. Steve didn't scream, not like this.

Chin stood. "Stay with him – keep him conscious, keep him talking. I'm gonna go check on the ambulance. It should be here by now." With that, he jogged off, leaving Danny with Steve still shivering in his arms.

"You hear that, babe? You gotta stay awake for me."

"Dan—Danno, I'm fine," Steve said. The sharp breath he took in the middle made it a lot less believable, though, and the short breaths that followed made _Danny_ feel a little lightheaded.

"When all this is said and done, you and me and Miriam Webster are gonna have a nice long talk about the meaning of the word 'fine', because I don't think it means what you think it means," Danny said, but it lacked the usual bite. He was too worried – no, worried didn't do it justice. Petrified, maybe. Panicked. "I swear, it's a wonder you survived this long on your own."

Danny meant it to be teasing, and he managed to get a shaky laugh out of his boyfriend.

"Oh, you think that's funny?"

"Hil—hilarious." Another breathless chuckle, only it caught, and Danny felt him stiffen as another wave of pain caught him off guard.

He held him through it, pressing a kiss to the top of his head as Steve's whole body locked up. "Shh, you're okay," he said. "Breathe through it. You're okay. The ambulance'll be here soon."

Steve actually let out a groan at that.

"Of course," Danny said incredulously. "You get shot and thrown off a fucking boat, and the hospital's what you're gonna groan about. Sorry, babe, but that part's non-negotiable."

As if on cue, the sound of sirens finally became audible. Relief flooded Danny like a storm, only to sweep away as Steve started to shift.

"No," he said. "Hold still, Steve. The more you move, the more it's gonna hurt."

"No shit." But even as he quipped back, Danny felt his grip tighten around his arm. It was no secret how Steve hated hospitals; Danny just didn't see them having another option.

As the sirens got louder, and as the lights appeared near the docks, Danny could sense Steve's discomfort growing. He was in pain, having trouble breathing, no doubt a little out of his head, and was about to be stuck with one of his least favorite things in the world. Danny felt for him; it was a nightmare for Danny just watching it.

But damn, he wished those paramedics would haul ass.


	6. Chapter 6

Danny had never really believed in higher powers. It was something Steve had always given him grief for; they'd had more than a few of their little 'carguments,' as Danny liked to call them, on the subject. Even now, all things considered, Danny was having a little trouble thanking anyone upstairs.

Chin, on the other hand, was a completely different story.

"They're coming," he said as he came literally sprinting back over. He dropped to his knees next to Steve, and with him down, Danny could see the approaching mass of what looked like two people and a stretcher heading down the docks.

He let out a breath he knew all too well he'd been holding. They weren't out of the woods yet, but this was a step in the right direction.

"Alright, babe, here we go. Party's about to start." Unfortunately, as lighthearted as it came out, they both knew what that was: a warning.

Steve started to sit up a little straighter, only to stop short, his hand coming up to his chest to fist in his t-shirt. He coughed, a dry, hacking sound that didn't sound like it had anything to do with the water he'd been inhaling, and Danny could feel his chest heaving with each breath. It was working too hard; _Steve_ was working too hard, just to draw in a breath.

"Steve? Steve, what's wrong?" As he spoke, he was slipping out from under his partner. Chin, who had taken up post on his other side, was helping him lower Steve onto his back.

The wide, almost panicked look on Steve's eyes made Danny's mind go blank for a second. The blue tinge to his lips and the pallor of his face only made it worse, and it took everything Danny had just to snap himself out of it and stay his ass calm.

"I'm—I'm okay," Steve managed, but it seemed like the words were costing him more and more. The jerky rise and fall of his chest didn't look natural.

All the same, he managed a nod and a smile, for Steve's sake. "That's right, babe. You're gonna be okay," he said. "But I'm gonna go ahead and add that to the vocab list, just to be on the safe side."

It was hard to tell if what Steve let out was a chuckle or a cough, but the weak smile he was flashing back at Danny was reassuring. He wasn't suffocating – at least, not yet. It was getting worse, and that was definitely cause for panic, but panic wouldn't help anything, and the paramedics were on the way. He _would_ be okay. He had to be.

Danny saw Chin move away from Steve's other side, and for a second, he was confused. Then, though, he saw the wheels and bars of the bottom of a stretcher, accompanied by two pairs of feet, and he glanced up from Steve's face just long enough to see that the paramedics had arrived.

Quickly, Danny gathered what little composure he could and forced himself to move back out of the way. He had to hold it together just a little bit longer. "This is Commander Steve McGarrett of Five-0," he told them as they dropped down next to him. "He's got a gunshot wound to the left thigh, maybe some broken ribs. He's having trouble breathing."

The paramedic opposite of him, kneeling at Steve's head, was a woman maybe a little older than Steve with dark hair pulled up in a tight bun. She nodded at him, and then turned her attention to Steve. "Commander McGarrett, my name is Tanya, and that's my partner Mark. I'm going to need to listen to your chest, and my partner is going to take your vitals and get a couple of lines going on you, okay?"

Somehow, even blue in the lips and white in the face, Steve had the gumption to look exasperated. Of course, a Navy SEAL would get _annoyed_ with the paramedics treating him, the psycho. "Yes," he practically hissed. Danny hoped they would think it was the breathlessness that made it sound that way, and not that his partner was actually irritated with them.

Whether or not they did, Danny couldn't really tell. He didn't really care, either; not as long as they were doing their job. Which, from what he could see from his post a few feet away, they were. Tanya had cut away Steve's shirt and was pressing a stethoscope to his chest, while Mark attached a blood pressure cuff and what Danny recognized as a pulse ox monitor.

"How're you doing, McGarrett? You still with us?"

Danny chanced a glance to Steve's face to see it drawn tight, his eyes open and staring straight up at the darkening sky. "Steve," he thought he heard him say, before falling into a round of those same dry, hacking coughs that seemed to wrack his whole body. This time, though, they didn't stop.

"McGar—Steve, I need you to stay with us. Steve? Mark, I need a non-rebreather and a decompression kit on this guy." She'd no sooner said it than Mark was closing in on Steve with an oxygen mask and a small package whose contents Danny couldn't pick out.

Danny had half a mind to warn him. He'd seen it a few times before, people trying to put a mask on Steve. He didn't like them, and he made sure people knew it.

Only…nothing happened. They managed to get the elastic band over the back of Steve's head effortlessly, without so much as a twitch on Steve's part.

His stomach sank to the soles of his feet. He was unconscious. Steve was unconscious.

Oh, God, just let him be unconscious.

"Come on," he heard Chin say, but he sounded so far away. He could feel the man's hand on his shoulder, pushing him back, but he could hardly feel it over the thudding of his pulse in his ears. "Come on, brah. There's nothing you can do, here."

In the end, Chin ended up practically dragging him off the docks to where the police cars had started to gather. Danny did the whole song and dance, his mind only half – if that – on what was going on. All the while, he kept glancing over to the dock, waiting to see the stretcher come rolling.

It was five, maybe ten minutes tops before he saw what he was looking for – even though it felt like three and a half years. The two paramedics were pushing a gurney, and even with the blanket strapped over the top, and all the tubes and wires, Danny knew who it was.

He turned back to see Kono looking at him with furrowed brows. "Go on, brah. We've got it here."

Danny knew that it would've been good manners to protest a little, offer to stay back and help sort through the mess of dead bodies and fucked up boats he'd helped create, but, well…

He was too busy running to catch up with the stretcher.

"I'm coming with you," he said.

"Who are you?" The male paramedic, Mark, spoke for the first time.

Danny flashed his badge. "Detective Danny Williams, Five-0. I'm Steve's partner and his emergency contact." He'd found that out the hard way a couple months ago, when Steve's head had met the business end of a monkey wrench. A mild heart attack later on his part and a dozen stitches later on Steve's, Steve had explained that no, it wasn't just because they were dating that he'd listed him; it was because he trusted him with his life.

No pressure or anything.

"Detective Williams?"

Shaking his head, Danny snapped himself out of his little daze and hopped up into the back of the ambulance. He took the bench seat closest to Steve's head and hopefully the farthest out of the way, and as the paramedics set about their business setting up IV bags and hooking Steve up to the various machines, Danny took the opportunity to take stock of his boyfriend's condition.

He was still unconscious, if the closed eyes and general fact that he was _actually still for once in his life_ were anything to go by, but the puffs of breath condensing against the plastic of the mask were reassuring. They were steadier than they had been, his breaths; he looked to be breathing easier.

Danny wondered if that had anything with the port sticking out of his chest, about halfway between his collarbone and right nipple, or the needle that it seemed to be attached to.

His cargos, may they rest in peace, looked to have met a similar end as his shirt had. At least the left leg had, where it lay exposed from under the blanket. They'd tucked it in around his hip, under the stretcher belt, and under his thigh so that they could get to the bullet wound. That, as it happened, was where Tanya had set up shop. She was cutting through the makeshift bandage, but when he caught sight of the actual wound itself for the first time, so gory and puckered from the water, he had to look away. It wasn't like he'd never seen bullet wounds before; hell, he'd _had_ bullet wounds before. It wasn't even like he hadn't seen _Steve_ with a bullet wound.

It was just…if there was nothing he could do about it, then he didn't want to see it. Besides, there were more interesting things to look at.

Steve was coming around. Danny watched his brows furrow, his breath hitch, his shoulders tense – all telltale signs that Steve was waking up. If they were back at Steve's house in bed, this would be about the point – that is, if Danny was even awake – that he would hear Steve let out a quiet gasp, sit up, and probably pad out to the lanai or the beach.

Unfortunately, they weren't back at Steve's house. Steve didn't get up and pad out to the lanai. He didn't go for a morning swim. He didn't come back into the kitchen smelling like seawater with that crazy, stupid, happy grin on his face to eat pancakes with Danny and Grace.

He didn't do any of that. Of course he didn't. He was lying on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance with a hole in his leg; a jaunt in the ocean was a thing of the probably very distant future.

What he did do, however, was start to open his eyes, and in Danny's books, that was just fine, too.

At least, it was, until he started trying to do more.

"Hey, hey, hey. Where do you think you're going" Danny said as Steve started trying to sit up. He had this glassy look in his blue eyes when they rolled around to Danny – probably thanks to something in the IV they'd hooked him up to – like he wasn't really sure what the hell was going on. But being Steve, that wouldn't stop him from going into SEAL mode and trying to do something stupid like sitting up with busted ribs and a needle in his chest.

But Danny was no stranger to semi-disoriented hospital Steve – because yes, that was fast-becoming a thing – and before Steve could move too much, he put a hand on his shoulder and held him to the stretcher.

"Easy, Sasquatch," he said.

That was about when the paramedics seemed to realize Steve was coming to.

"Commander McGarrett?" Mark said, coming around to the head of the stretcher on the other side from Danny. "Steve, can you hear me?"

Steve's response was to reach for the oxygen mask. His movements were clumsy, sluggish, but he still managed to get it pulled down over his neck. "What…happened?" It was barely more than a whisper, broken with strained breaths. It seemed that, even though he was breathing easier, he still wasn't breathing easy.

"You inhaled an ocean and passed out," Danny told him, a little rushed. "And I'd kind of like to avoid a repeat performance, so how about we get this thing back where it's supposed to go?" As he spoke, he reached for the mask around Steve's neck.

Even drugged up and out of breath, Steve still had it in him to try and push Danny's hand away. Danny glanced up at the two EMT's for an assist, but Tanya was still working on Steve's leg, and Mark was conveniently very focused on the monitors.

He was on his own, then. Just him, his graying hair, and a wounded Navy SEAL that refused to behave himself.

He only wished this was uncharted territory.

"Alright, babe, here's how it's gonna go—"

"Danno…." Steve started to sit up again, but Danno was waiting with a hand on his shoulder.

"No," he said. "Don't 'Danno' me, Steven. The lack of bullet wounds on my immediate person say I'm the boss right now. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna get this thing back on you," he went for the mask again, and batted Steve's hands away when he tried to stop him so that he could pull it up over his mouth and nose where it was supposed to be, "these kind folks here are gonna do…whatever it is they gotta do, and we're gonna get you back to leaping onto moving boats and throwing ninja stars and shit."

"Knife, Danno," Steve muttered, letting his head fall back against the pillow. "It was…a knife." His eyes flickered, like he was having trouble staying awake, and Danny glanced up to see Mark holding one of the IV lines with a knowing look on his face.

Someone get this man a medal, Danny thought.

"Yeah, yeah, Rambo 2.0. Don't get your tactical gear in a twist." He gave his partner's shoulder a reassuring squeeze, though, and a fond smile that took all the edge out of the words. "Just relax and let these people do their work."

Steve's chest jumped in what Danny could only hope was a chuckle and not some sort of weird, lung-puncturing muscle spasm. But his fears were put to rest when, through the mask, he heard a muffled, "Yes, dear."

He thought about retorting, but Steve's eyes had slid closed and his breathing had steadied out again, so he figured it wasn't worth disturbing him. There would be plenty of time for their bickering later, when Steve wasn't in a world of pain – the set of his jaw and the lines on his brow were really telling – and the panic of seeing him gasp for breath like a fish out of water wasn't quite so fresh.

So, instead, he settled for catching Steve's hand in his and letting his thumb trace absently over the strong digits. "Yeah, alright, you big lug."

When he finally managed to tear his eyes away from Steve's too-pale face, he saw Tanya watching him. "So," she said, "how long you two been married?"

Danny couldn't help it; he had to laugh, if for no other reason than it was a hell of a lot better than breaking down and crying like his twelve-year-old daughter out of relief. And even though he couldn't see Steve's lips and his eyes were closed, he only needed to see the crinkle around them to know that, faint as it was, Steve was smiling too.


	7. Chapter 7

Danny hated waiting. He hated waiting at the mechanic to get his car serviced, he hated waiting at a restaurant to get his food….

But more than anything in this world, he hated waiting at a hospital to hear how the man he loved made it through surgery.

"Hey, brah."

Danny turned to see a pair of familiar faces coming into the waiting room. Chin and Kono, both still in the same clothes they'd been in at the docks, were walking up to him, both with matching expressions of worry on their faces.

"How is he?" Kono asked.

"He's in surgery now for his leg. The bullet missed his femoral, but it managed to nick the…." Danny wracked his brain for a second for what the doctor had said when he was explaining all this, but he came up short. "Lateral something."

"Lateral femoral circumflex?" Chin suggested.

Danny snapped and pointed. "That's the one." In his defense, it had been more than a decade since his last anatomy class. Not to mention the two long, heart-palpitating hours since he and the good doctor had spoken that he was pretty sure had bumped down his life expectancy by a good five, ten percent.

He'd been alright in the ambulance, all things considered. The first few minutes of the ride, especially once Steve settled down, hadn't been that bad. But then about five, ten minutes out from the hospital, Steve had started getting restless and even more disoriented than he had been. The alerts on the monitors had started going off around that time, and Tanya had mentioned something about a 'bleeder' as Steve's blood pressure took a dive.

Danny's heart had taken a dive right there with it.

He must've given something away with his face, because Chin's frown deepened. "Did something happen?"

"Yeah." Danny sighed deeply, running his hands through his hair. "Yeah, something definitely happened." And it kept happening, every time Danny closed his eyes. The blood seeping into the blanket, the chill of Steve's hand in his, the frantic beeping of the monitor alarms…yeah, that'd give him some good nightmare fodder for weeks to come.

"He'll be okay, brah," Chin said. He clapped a firm hand on Danny's shoulder and then, to Danny's surprise, held out a keychain. "I drove the Camaro over for you."

It was times like this that Danny was reminded how lucky he was to have an ohana like this one. He pocketed the keys and clasped Chin's hand, pulling him in for a brief, yet heartfelt hug. "Thanks, brother."

"Anytime."

Nodding and doing his level best not to do that whole 'crying like his twelve-year-old daughter' thing he'd sworn off in the ambulance, Danny cleared his throat and turned to Kono. "What about Emma? Is she okay?" Knowing Steve, that'd be the first thing he'd ask when he came to, and Danny wanted to be able to tell him.

"She's with her parents," Kono said. Her voice was a little shaky, and her eyes were a little misty, but she was holding it together about as well as Danny was. "She has a couple of cuts and bruises, but once HPD's got her statement, they're taking her home."

"That's—that's good. That's really good." One less thing to worry about.

Kono's brows furrowed. "What about you?" she asked.

"What about me?"

"I think she means, are _you_ good?" Chin chimed in.

Danny raised an eyebrow. He opened his mouth, closed it again – a few false starts later, his brain actually remembered how to words. "Am I good?" He rubbed his face and took a deep breath. What he wanted to say was that he'd get back to her. As soon as he saw Steve McGarrett's smiling, conscious, both-feet-squarely-out-of-the-grave face, he would definitely get back to her.

What ended up coming out of his mouth, though, was, "Yeah, I'm good." It was a lie. He knew it; hell, they all knew it. But what else was he gonna do? He had to keep it together, at least until he had a chance to find a dark corner to crawl into. "But I gotta say, I'll be doing better when I hear something."

"Looks like that'll be sooner rather than later," Chin said. He nodded over Danny's shoulder, and Danny turned to see an older-looking gentleman with glasses and a little extra padding in scrubs and a lab coat making his way over.

"Are you here for Commander McGarrett?" the man said.

"Yeah, that's us." Danny turned and offered his hand. "Detective Danny Williams."

The doctor shook his hand briefly, yet firmly. "Doctor Walshe. I'm Commander McGarrett's surgeon."

"He's out of surgery, then?" Chin chimed in, which was probably for the best, because Danny had heard the word 'surgeon' and his brain had petered out. When Walshe turned to Chin with a curious look, Chin introduced himself. "Lieutenant Chin Ho Kelly, Five-0."

"Officer Kono Kalakaua," Kono offered when his gaze turned on her.

With introductions all made, Doctor Walshe seemed content to continue. "Yes, Commander McGarrett is out of surgery."

"How is he?" The words came out in a rush as Danny's mind got going again.

If Doctor Walshe noticed his clipped, urgent tone, he didn't seem to mind. The guy probably got it a lot, to be fair. "He's doing fine," the man said.

Danny could've collapsed from relief right then and there. However, his more curious – some would say more cynical – side got the best of him, and he kept listening.

"We managed to repair most of the damage in his leg. Luckily, the bullet avoided the bone and any major arteries. There is some soft tissue damage, but I'm afraid at this point, we can't say how severe it is."

"Are we talking permanent damage?" He knew the guy had just said they couldn't say, but he figured they might at least know that.

The doctor's face didn't change. "As I said, we can't be certain for now," he began, and Danny felt his hands clench at his sides. "_But_," Walshe continued, and maybe the day he'd had was starting to get to him, but Danny could've sworn he saw a bit of a smile on the man's thin lips, "I would feel confident in saying that, barring complications and with the proper physiotherapy, Commander McGarrett should make a full recovery."

Again, it was only by sheer force of will that Danny didn't collapse into a boneless heap on the floor. Fuck dignity; Steve was alive. But, for the sake of his pride and Kono and Chin not having to scrape his sorry ass up off the floor, he managed.

Besides, he remembered something else. "What about his breathing?" It was kind of hard to forget the blue-tinged lips and panicked look in Steve's eyes – because as stony as Steve could be, Danny had learned to read his eyes – when he was gasping for breath out on the docks.

Doctor Walshe nodded. "Commander McGarrett had a collapsed lung, presumably as a result of blunt force trauma to the chest."

"Meaning…what, exactly?"

"When Commander McGarrett was brought in, he had three broken ribs."

Danny winced. Shot-up leg, a punctured lung, _and_ broken ribs – Steve was in for a long series of not-so-fun days.

But Walshe wasn't finished. "However, the injuries were…curious."

"Curious?" Chin asked.

Walshe nodded again. "The gunshot wound and pneumothorax both appeared to be very recent injuries, sustained within hours of treatment."

"But?" Danny crossed his arms, his lips pulling down into a frown. "I'm sensing a 'but' here."

"_But_, given the stage of the swelling, it seems likely that the breaks – or, at least, the cracks that preceded them – were sustained several hours prior to his arrival here. It's the same with a number of contusions and abrasions, including the wound on his cheek."

Danny furrowed his brows, but Kono was the first to speak. "Several hours?" she said. "But that doesn't make any—"

"Oh yes it does," Danny interrupted. His face was drawn, and he raised a hand to scratch at his temple, just _willing_ himself not to do something stupid like lose his temper in a waiting room full of kind and innocent people. "It makes perfect sense."

"What are you talking about?" Kono asked.

Danny gritted his teeth in what he hoped was a peaceful-looking smile. "What I am talking about, Kono, is how my partner is an idiot, and how, as soon as he's awake enough to _maybe_ understand it, he and I are going to have a long, _long_ talk about the finer points of self-preservation."

For his part, Doctor Walshe looked completely lost. Chin, however, seemed to catch on. "The warehouse this morning," he said.

Danny nodded stiffly. "The warehouse." And that was all he was going to say on the matter, for the sake of _his_ blood pressure. At least until Steve was awake enough to _pretend_ to listen to him. So, instead, he turned to the doctor, pressing his hands together and resting his chin on the points of his fingers. His smile felt like it was going to split his face in half. "Is there anything else I should know about?" At Walshe's confused-slash-uneasy expression, he explained, "I'm just compiling a list of all the things, you know, that I need to yell at him for later." Because for fuck's sake, he'd been in the _back of an ambulance_ and hadn't seen fit to mention any broken – or cracked, or whatever the hell they'd been at the time – ribs and assorted other injuries. No, he'd decided it would be a much better idea to go leaping onto a moving boat and joining in on not one, but _two_ shootouts.

And to think, there was a time he'd thought Rachel was crazy. At least with her, he usually knew about when to expect it.

And, he had about a month to prepare.

With Steve, though, there was no telling when the crazy would spring up. The only thing he could predict about Steve's particular brand of insane was that it _would_ spring up, and chances were, he was gonna get dragged into it.

Case and point.

"I believe that's all of Commander McGarrett's injuries," said Doctor Walshe.

Well, at the very least, there was that.

Forcing himself to take a calming breath – as much as he wanted to kill his partner sometimes, he'd come too close to seeing him really die that day for anger to be the top priority – he rubbed his sore, tired eyes and asked, "Can we see him?"

"He's being moved to a private room as we speak. A nurse will be down to show you to it in a few minutes." He held out his hand to Danny, and Danny took it. "It was a pleasure to meet you."

"You, too," Danny said automatically. Walshe exchanged similar shakes with Chin and Kono, and then he was off again. Danny didn't blame him. His world might stop when Steve went down, but everyone else's didn't. A man like Walshe probably had a full docket, and he could understand him needing to get back to it.

True to his word, a few minutes later, a perky blonde nurse that Danny pegged somewhere in her late twenties came out and led them up to the third floor, through the maze of hallways, and eventually to the door of the room belonging to a one Commander Steve McGarrett.

"We just got him settled in," she said as they stopped by the door. "Don't let all the wires and tubes scare you – his IV is just fluids and pain medication. He was a little dehydrated when he came in, and it should help get his blood pressure up."

Danny could definitely handle that. To be honest, after all the blood he'd seen in the ambulance, he'd been half expecting Steve to be getting a transfusion.

"Visitors are one at a time," she said. She stepped a bit away, then, presumably to give them a little bit of privacy to hash out who was going in first. "I'll show the rest of you to the waiting room."

"You go ahead, brah," Chin said, but Danny shook his head.

"You and Kono go ahead and visit him. I'm probably going to see if I can coerce the nurses into letting me hang around." It wouldn't be the first time one of them had broken usual hospital visiting hours for the other. He remembered when he'd gotten hit with that sarin poison, waking up at two in the damn morning to see Steve still keeping watch from the chair in the corner.

Of course, he hadn't stayed in the corner very long. Hospital beds could be oddly accommodating with the right amount of motivation and determination. That is, provided one had a very flexible idea of personal space and, well, a very flexible boyfriend. You wouldn't know if from looking at the tower of sleek muscle and hard lines that was Steve McGarrett, but he could be pretty bendable when he wanted to be.

Danny felt his lips twitch upward at the thought: the two of them packed onto one of those beds like sardines. Strange as it sounded, it was thanks to that he couldn't watch _Titanic_ anymore. Seriously, a grown ass man, and Steve, a grown ass sasquatch could fit together on a tiny little hospital bed, and they couldn't fit together on that whole damn raft? He called bullshit.

But he digressed.

"I'll be out to you guys in ten, okay?" Kono said. Apparently, sometime during Danny's little mental stroll, she and Chin had decided who was going first. She was lucky number one.

"Take your time," Danny said.

The nurse seemed to think that was an alright time to chime in. "He's still probably got another few hours before he comes out of the anesthesia," she told them.

They nodded, and with a wave to Kono, Danny and Chin followed the nurse down to the waiting room. This one was much smaller than the other one, with a few less ficus trees and what looked alarmingly like pineapple-printed borders.

As soon as the nurse took her leave and they were alone, Danny turned to Chin.

"I'm going to kill him," he said. "I am literally going to take his bootlaces and strangle him with them."

Rather than concern or confusion or any other sensible reaction from Chin, though, the lieutenant just smiled. "Happy he's okay, huh?"

"Like you wouldn't believe." And as if to prove his point, that imminent relief-crash finally caught up with him and he dropped like a sack of potatoes into one of the mass-produced chairs with a sigh that rattled straight from his very bones. "He's gonna be the death of me, Chin. I face down killers and psychopaths every day, and that man," he gestured vaguely in the direction of the hallway, "is going to send me to my grave."

"Probably," Chin agreed, coming to sit down a little more gracefully in the seat across from him. "But then, he wouldn't be Steve if he didn't keep us on our toes."

Danny couldn't help chuckling at that, as he ran a hand through his hair for what felt like the umpteenth time that day. "That he most certainly wouldn't."

And as stressful as Steve could be sometimes – well, _most_ times – Danny found that he wouldn't have him any other way.


	8. Chapter 8

It was hard to tell if it was the beeping that woke him up, or the weird sort of feeling on his leg that fell somewhere between throbbing pain and pressure. He figured it probably had to be the pressure, because it seemed safe to say the beeping had been going on for a while.

When he tried to sit up to see what it was, though, he found that he couldn't. The sharp pain in his chest when he even _thought_ about moving notwithstanding – because honestly, that probably wouldn't have stopped him – there was a different sort of pressure on his left shoulder that was keeping him down.

"Good morning, Steven. I'm Malana, your nurse for this shift. It's good to see you awake."

Steve turned his head to see an older woman looking at him with a warm, almost motherly smile. She was pulling the blanket back over his leg, so it seemed safe to say she had something to do with his leg hurting…besides, well, the bullet he vaguely remembered tearing through his thigh.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, coming up to stand closer to the head of his bed. As she spoke, she went about her business, checking the monitors and all sorts of other fun stuff that Steve's foggy mind just wouldn't let him keep up with.

He was guessing they had him on the good stuff, which he wasn't exactly psyched about. But then, he figured he would probably a lot more than sore right then if they didn't, so it was hard to be too frustrated with it.

So, in answer to Malana's question, he gave a one-sided shrug. He really was gonna have to figure out what the deal was with his other shoulder. And why, for some reason, he kept smelling his own soap. "Can't complain," he said. He nearly winced at the sound of his own voice; his throat felt like he'd been gargling razorblades.

Malana seemed to notice. "They had to intubate you for surgery," she explained. "Your throat's gonna be a little bit sore for a little while. How about an ice chip?"

Steve could've groaned.

"Oh, don't look so put out," Malana tutted. "We just want to make sure you tolerated the anesthesia okay. It says on your records that you've had a little trouble with it in the past, and believe you me, sweetheart, throwing up with broken ribs wouldn't exactly be a swim in the ocean. We'll make sure you can keep this down, then we go to water, and come afternoon, you might even be on clears. And who knows what the evening could bring?" She smiled and patted his shoulder, and despite everything, Steve couldn't help smiling back.

As much as he disliked what she was saying, he kind of liked the way she said it. She was to-the-point, and if it didn't hurt so much, he probably would've chuckled at a few of the things she'd said.

"You're lucky, you know," she said out of the blue, and when Steve arched an eyebrow – miraculously, one of the only parts of him that didn't hurt – she nodded towards the other side of the bed.

Finally, Steve worked up the energy to turn his head, and was greeted with a sight that made everything else somehow seem less important.

Danny was sitting in a chair beside his bed, asleep. Suddenly, the weight on his shoulder made a lot more sense: Danny was only _sleeping_ on it. He had his arms folded across the bed, a magazine – American Girl, the cover said; Steve would tuck that little nugget away to tease Danny with later – still rolled up in his hands. His head had slumped sideways onto Steve's shoulder, and judging by the gel-free appearance of his hair and the fact that he was _not_ wearing the same clothes Steve remembered him in that morning…erm…the morning before, it seemed safe to assume the soap smell was coming from his partner.

As to why it was _his _soap…well, he didn't have any idea. But he also didn't have any complaints.

"Your pain pump is right there," said Malana, holding up a little remote for him to see. "Just goose this button here if you notice it starting to get worse. It's best to stay ahead of it, too; don't let it sneak up on you." She had a knowing look on her face as she said it, too. It was like an older, more female, less _haole_ version of Danny's patented 'don't do that stupid thing I know you're gonna do anyway' look.

It was actually uncanny.

"Press the call button if you need anything. The doctor will be by around six to check on you."

Steve flashed Malana his most charming smile. "Looking forward to it."

"I'm sure you are." Malana's eyes twinkled with amusement before wandering over to the slumbering mass of mainlander. "He's been here the whole time," she said. "Convinced the director to let him stay the night, Pele only knows how. Although, between you and me," she leaned in, cupping her hand to her mouth conspiratorially, "I heard there guns involved." The smile on her face and the wink strongly suggested that she was kidding, but sometimes, Steve did wonder. "You're a lucky man, Steven McGarrett." And with that, she took her leave.

As soon as she was gone, Steve let his head fall back against the pillow, turning enough so that he could see Danny's sleeping head again. "Yeah," he said to no one in particular, "I am."

Granted, he was a lucky man with a head swimming with narcotics and a body full of dull aches. And now that he thought about it, there was something in his nose: something hard and plastic-feeling, and he could feel it pushing air against his already-dry throat.

Ignoring the pinch of the IV in the back of his right hand, Steve reached up to try to remedy the situation.

"Touch that cannula, and I will beat you with a rolled up magazine."

Steve's hand froze in place, and he rolled his head once again to see Danny's apparently-no-longer-sleeping face staring back at him. His partner had sat up a little bit, though his elbows still rested on the side of the bed.

As fuzzy as his head was – because, Christ, it felt like someone had scooped out his brain and stuffed his skull with feathers – he still had the acuity to take in the bags under Danny's bloodshot eyes and the thicker-than-usual scruff on his face.

He frowned. "You look like shit, Danno," he deadpanned.

Danny sat up a little straighter at that. "Me?" he said, his voice that delightful mix of incredulous and amused, gesturing to his own chest. "_I'm_ the one that looks like shit?"

"You do look pretty rough."

"Do I, now? Well, that's rich coming from the guy in the hospital bed."

Steve was actually a little sad to see Danny's face soften. Maybe it spoke to some deeply-seeded – or maybe not so deeply-seeded – masochism, but he always loved his and Danny's little rows. Especially times like this. Helped get his mind off things – helped him ignore the steadily-mounting pain in his leg and the heaviness in his chest.

Seeing the concern in Danny's eyes, though, the haggard look on his face and all the little things – the redness of his bottom lip from where he'd been chewing it, the crinkled edge of the magazine where he'd been picking at it – that told him Danny'd been worrying about him…it made it all kind of hard to ignore.

"How're you feeling, babe?"

Steve pulled that smile from before back out and dusted it off, hoping that it wouldn't look as out of place with the rest of him as it felt. "I'll live."

He knew as soon as he heard Danny chuckle that _that_ hadn't been the right answer.

"Yes," Danny said, nodding. "Yes, you will definitely live."

Steve was listening intently. See, the voice Danny was using right then was the one that Steve had identified as his 'fuse' voice. It was all calm, maybe a little hissy, but he knew that it was really just a matter of time before shit blew up.

In other words: proceed with caution.

"If only so that _I_, myself, personally, can kill you later."

And there it was. Although, it was really more of an incendiary grenade than, say, a pineapple grenade – and yes, that was a pun, and yes, the morphine probably made it funnier than it really was – more for burning than blowing up.

Still, that didn't mean there couldn't be a secondary charge.

"Danno—"

Danny held up a hand. "Don't, Steven," he said. "Just…don't."

"You're mad at me." It wasn't a question.

"Oh, you picked up on that, did you? Great detective skills there, Super SEAL."

Steve took another step in the mine field. "Can I ask _why_ you're mad at me?"

"Why do you think?" Danny retorted.

"Well, Danno, I obviously don't know, or else I wouldn't—" his breath hitched when he tried to sit up a little bit, and his ribs seized up in violent protest, "—wouldn't be asking."

He half expected Danny to start reading him the riot act, but instead, his face softened again, and he stood up. For a second, there was the briefest flash of irrational, inexplicable fear that Danny had just had it and was gonna leave.

But then, Danny sighed and put a hand on his shoulder, easing as much as pushing him back to the bed. "What're you doing, you idiot?" he asked, and damned if his voice wasn't the most worn-out, dog-tired sound Steve had ever heard.

It was enough that Steve didn't even try to put up a fight – not that he could've given Danny much of one, in the shape he was in – and just let himself be pushed back.

"You could've gotten yourself killed," Danny said. "It was bad enough rushing in like that, but you were already hurt."

"It wasn't that bad."

"Wasn't that—" Danny seemed to catch himself before he ripped Steve a new one. He brought a hand up to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose and squinting the way he always did when he couldn't decide just what emotion he felt more of. He seemed to settle on one, though, and with a sigh, he took his hand away from his face and sank down onto the side of Steve's bed. "Three broken ribs, a concussion…a shit ton of cuts and bruises…and none of that gave you pause? None of that made you stop and think, oh, I don't know, 'maybe I should tell someone that I'm beat to hell before I go _gallivanting off_ to another _shootout_'?"

"Danno, I—"

"But no. You've got to be the Super SEAL, because God forbid you actually _tell_ someone when you're in pain. God forbid you actually let someone help you when you need it."

"Danny—"

"You're like…you're like a wave, Steve."

Shit, he was getting metaphorical. Steve was always screwed when he got metaphorical.

In a normal argument, that would be about the time Steve found some sort of excuse to…well, being perfectly honest, that would've been when he ran off with his tail tucked between his legs. Sure, he'd find a more graceful, _tactical_ way to do it – cases were usually great for that – but essentially, it was a full-fucking-retreat. Fall back and get out while the going was good, because an angry Danny was, in his professional opinion, more terrifying than an entire army of armed-to-the-teeth guerrilla terrorists.

Unfortunately, the bullet wound in his leg kind of limited his escape options. He guessed, if worst came to worst, he could roll out of bed and low-crawl his way out of the hospital room, but something told him Danny would probably catch him before he made it very far. And that was assuming he didn't just pass out first.

Nope, it seemed like he was just going to have to grit his teeth and bear it.

"Are you listening?"

Steve snapped out of his little mental tangent. One problem with drugs: they tended to let his mind wander. He didn't like it.

Forcing his train wreck of a thought process back on track, he made his eyes focus on Danny's very stern-looking face and tried to make his match it while he nodded.

Danny's frown just deepened, but he went on anyway. "It's like you're always rushing in and falling back at all the wrong times. You're happy as a clam," great, Steve thought, a metaphor within a metaphor; now he knew he was screwed, "running headlong into bad situations like you don't even realize it's a monumentally _bad idea_, but then with us, with _me_, you're always pulling away. You'll put your life on the line, but the second it comes time for you to trust someone, you practically run screaming in the opposite direction."

If he hadn't felt so woozy, Steve probably would've blushed. As it was, he tried to say something – damn it, _anything_ – to take away some of the hurt in his partner's blue eyes. He opened his mouth, but before he could get anything out—

"You wanna know the problem with big waves, though, Steve?" Danny said. "The problem with them is eventually, _waves break_. And one of these days, you're gonna go rushing into something, and one day—" Danny's voice caught, his baby blues shining, and damned if that didn't hurt more than any broken ribs ever could. "And one day, you're gonna crash, and the thought of that happening…" Danny didn't finish the sentence; he didn't have to.

As he watched Danny wipe his face, felt his fingers tighten around his shoulder like he was afraid to let him go, Steve realized something.

"I'm an idiot."

There was a moment of silence, but then, a smile broke out on Danny's face. It was a little bit at odds with the moisture in his eyes, but Steve would take almost anything at that point.

"Oh," Danny said. "You're just now figuring that out, are you?"

Normally, that would be where Steve came back with some sort of smartass retort. As had already been established, though, this just _wasn't_ a normal day. Besides, the morphine was kind of putting a damper on his wit, and honestly, he was just too tired.

So, instead, he just reached up, cupped a hand to the back of Danny's head, and leaned up to kiss him.

That was the plan, anyway. He made it about halfway before the bandages and the broken ribs made the joint decision he would go no further, and he caught with a wince.

Danny, for his part, took it well. With a fond, if exasperated smile, he reached a hand to Steve's other shoulder and helped him lay back on the pillows. "Alright, alright, you big lug."

"That—that went smoother…in my head," Steve ground out, but by the time his back hit the mattress, he was actually chuckling a little bit.

"That's it," Danny said. "You…you, my friend, are one-hundred percent certifiable. I'm officially having you committed."

Steve chuckled a little more, even though it hurt like a bitch to do it. "Do they do conjugal in the loony bin? How does that—how does that work?" He tried to keep a straight face, but it lasted all of about three seconds. Something else he was going to blame on the painkillers.

"You're assuming I'd want to come see you," was Danny's retort.

"I assume." He tried to sit up a little straighter, but that kind of bit him in the ass. He bit back a groan and dug his head back into the pillow.

When he opened his eyes again – he didn't actually remember closing them – Danny was looking down at him with furrowed brows and worry in his eyes. "Hurting pretty bad, huh, babe?"

"I—"

"Before you answer me, remember: magazine."

"—have been better," Steve finished lamely.

Danny rolled his eyes a little. "I'll bet you have," he said, and before Steve could protest, he'd reached across him to grab the pain pump.

"Danno….."

"Nuh uh, Super SEAL. We're doing things my way for a little while. Don't like it, you can file a complaint." He punctuated the statement with a press of the button on the remote, and silenced Steve's indignant objection with a kiss. "Just humor me, okay, babe?" he said. He put the remote back, and reached for Steve's cheek instead, brushing his gun-callused fingers through his short hair.

That, Steve thought, was better than any painkiller – just having Danny there, having him smiling. The steady brush of his fingers was soothing, and despite the ache in his leg and chest, he found himself relaxing back into the pillows.

"Emma and her family send their best, by the way," Danny said. His voice was softer than before, lower and more even. "The world is safe; you can relax."

Steve prized open a single eye to peer at Danny. "Are you trying to put me to sleep?"

"Trying? Oh no, babe. Succeeding. I am _succeeding_ in putting you to sleep."

Part of Steve wanted to argue. The other part, however, decided Danny was right and promptly closed his eye.

"Cooperative's a good color on you, Steve. You should try it more often."

He should've been indignant, but it was really hard with Danny's fingers carding through his hair. "Mhh…don't count on it."

"Of course not," he heard Danny say, but it already sounded a little far off, a little distant. He was starting to get that warm fuzziness, and strangely, he found he didn't mind. The girl was safe, Danny was safe…mission accomplished, as far as he was concerned. "Go ahead and take yourself a nap, babe. You earned it."

What could Steve say? He aimed to please.


	9. Chapter 9

The next day sucked, to put it lightly. Very lightly.

Because the bullet hadn't gone through anything important, Steve was all set to be released that afternoon. Danny personally wasn't sure how he felt about that, but the relief in Steve's eyes when the morning nurse, Malana, had given them the good news was enough to get him to go along with it.

He'd hung around that morning, helping out where he could, but mostly just offering loving, albeit sarcastic and generally teasing words of encouragement as Steve got up and walked – _limped_ was a better word for it, but for the sake of Steve's pride, they were gonna go with "walked" – around a little bit. It was just to satisfy the doctors and make sure there was no muscle or nerve damage, but Steve had taken it on like his own personal mission. Kinda like he did everything, Danny guessed. The number of times the words "don't push yourself" or some variation thereof had bounced around the hospital room and the nearby hall was probably bordering on record-breaking, and by the time they got Steve corralled back into bed, he was breathing hard. Luckily, his breathing had evened out sometime the night before, so he was alright. Better than alright, according to him. He was ready to go.

Except for the IV.

See, Danny had figured out a long time ago that it was some kind of universal hospital rule that the IV always had to be the last thing to go. Back when he'd been in for the sarin gas, for example, he could've sworn he waited around for three hours. He'd been about ready to yank the damn thing out himself. Probably would've, if Steve hadn't threatened to tell Grace he was being a bad patient.

Snitch.

But he digressed. The IV. They'd taken Steve off IV pain meds about two hours before his little jaunt, and it was going to take another couple hours to get through the last bag of fluids while they tried him out on by-mouth pain meds.

It was a little past two in the afternoon by the time the last of the nurses left the room. Steve was sort of sitting up in bed – the back was propped up – half paying attention to something on the television. Danny thought it was the Discovery Channel, but he wasn't paying enough attention to be sure.

He was more focused on Steve, to be honest. He looked more awake than Danny had seen him his whole time in the hospital. Awake, and thoroughly worn out, which was usually when Steve was at his happiest. That looked to be the case, now.

As if to prove Danny's point, a smile suddenly spread across Steve's face, and turned his head to look at Danny.

"What?" Danny said, leaning forward in his seat by the bed. He couldn't keep the smile off his own face, though. "What are you smiling about? Is something funny?"

"I just remembered something."

"You want to share with the class, then, babe?"

"You're vibrating."

"What?"

Instead of an answer, Steve just waved his hand towards Danny's hip.

Danny still didn't follow for a second, but then he felt a distinct buzz at his hip. His phone was going off.

Steve's smile widened, his eyes crinkling in the corners and dancing with silent laughter as Danny scrambled to get his phone out. He had no idea how long it had been ringing, but when he pulled it out and saw Rachel's name on the ID, he figured he was probably gonna get an earful for it, anyway.

"What, no _Jaws_ ringtone?" Steve asked as Danny pressed the call button and pressed the phone to his ear.

Danny just fixed him with a pointed look and pressed a finger to his lips, which in turn only made Steve's smile widen.

Danny's, on the other hand, took a nosedive – Steve's did, too, when he saw it – as Rachel started talking. Years of practice granted him the patience to wait until a break to start talking, and to keep his voice down when he did.

"No, Rachel, I—no, I can't do that right now." He paused. "Why not? Because I can't, that's why not…no, Rachel, it's not work. It's not—Steve's in the hospital, okay?" He flashed Steve a brief, apologetic look. Steve didn't usually like people he wasn't close to knowing his business, especially when that business was stuff like this. "_Yes, _Rachel, he's fine. He's going to be discharged in a few hours, which is why I can't go pick Gracie up from…hang on." Steve was clearly trying to get his attention, so he pulled the phone away from his face and pressed his hand to the receiver. "What?"

"Go," Steve said.

"I'll repeat myself: _what_? What are you talking about?"

With an exasperated huff – his ribs _must_ have been feeling at least a little bit better – Steve rolled his eyes. "Go pick Gracie up from school."

"Steve."

"Danny," Steve retorted petulantly, before continuing, "Just go and pick up your daughter. Believe it or not, I _can _make it a couple hours without your bedside vigil."

Danny raised his eyebrows dubiously. "Can you?"

Steve nodded patiently. "Yes, Danny. I can even dress myself and tie my own shoes, too."

"Wow." Danny feigned amazement. "You really are a Super SEAL."

"And you really are gonna be late," Steve told him, reaching over and tapping Danny's watch. "Go on, Danno. It's not like I'm going anywhere."

"You better not."

"Why? You gonna beat me with a magazine?" He chuckled. "I survived six years as a SEAL, and I'm gonna get killed by _American Girl_."

Danny smiled again. "Only if you don't behave," he said, and then put the phone back up to his ear. "You still there?" She was. "Yeah, Rachel, I can pick her up…I don't know when I'll be by to drop her off. Just—I'll see you later, okay? Okay, bye." With a satisfying beep, he ended the call and shoved his phone back in his pocket before turning his attention back to Steve. "I'll call around, see if someone can't come keep an eye on you while I'm gone. You gonna be okay 'til they get here?"

"It'll be tough, but I think I'll manage," was Steve's reply.

Snorting, Danny stood, trying not to wince as his knee popped, stiff from sitting too long. "Yeah right," he said, "give those meds a few minutes to kick in, you probably won't even notice I'm gone."

"Not true." Steve looks offended, only Danny knows better, so he rolls his eyes, and he heads for the door. "Miss you already, babe," he heard Steve call after him.

Danny chuckled to himself as he made his way down the hall, and under his breath, he said, "Miss you, too."

As luck would have it, though, he didn't have to miss him for long.

"Danno!"

Danny grinned as Grace came trotting down the stairs of her elementary school, kneeling to greet her when she reached his car. "Hey, Monkey," he said, folding her up in a tight hug. Never underestimate the healing properties of a ten-year-old after some of the hardest forty-eight hours of his life. "You ready to go home?"

"I get to go home with you?"

There was s no denying the surge of smug satisfaction at the hopefulness in Grace's eyes. She _wanted_ to spend time with him, and that was enough to make any father's chest swell.

Unfortunately, his chest promptly deflated with a sigh. "No, sorry, Monkey," he said. "I'm taking you back to Mommy's, okay? You'll get to come to my house next weekend, but I've got to go take care of Uncle Steve right now."

Grace's face fell immediately; her expression was as severe as a ten-year-old's could get. "What's wrong with Uncle Steve?" she said.

Danny had thought this conversation might come up, and so he had practiced on the ride over just how he was going to explain to his daughter that one of her favorite people in the world was currently lying in a hospital bed.

As with most things in child-rearing, though, practice was a lot different than the real thing. He frowned, putting his hands on Grace's shoulders, and took a deep breath. "A couple days ago, some really bad guys took a little girl. Uncle Steve and I caught them, but he got a little banged up."

"Is he okay?" Grace asked. Her eyes were getting a little misty, and Danny didn't think a kid so young was capable of looking so worried.

That was probably why he was so quick to smile and nod. "He's fine, Monkey. You know Uncle Steve – he's like a superhero or something. I've just got to get back to the hospital so that I can pick him up and take him home, like I'm doing for you."

Grace seemed to process that, and Danny could almost see her come to a decision in her head. "Can we go see him?"

He couldn't say he wasn't expecting that. Grace and Steve had kind of adopted each other, and not only did he think she wouldn't want to visit, but he also didn't think he had the heart not to let her.

"You sure you want to go see him, Monkey? He's not going to be able to get up and play around like he usually does." Because it seemed like, whenever Grace was around, Steve reverted to a ten-year-old himself, running around and horse playing and just generally goofing off with Grace until they eventually wore each other out.

But Grace had made up her mind, and she nodded firmly. "I wanna go," she said.

"Well, okay then." Danny stood up and opened her door for her. "Let's go see Uncle Steve."

The car ride was quiet, and Grace hardly said a word as he led her through the parking garage into the hospital and up to Steve's room. He did, however, stop her outside the door, kneeling down in front of her.

"Just a couple rules before we go in, okay?" he said, and Grace bobbed her head. "One, if Uncle Steve is asleep, we're not going to wake him up. Two, even if he tells you it's okay, we are not going to sit/stand/jump on his bed, capische?"

Grace bobbed her head again. "Capische."

The Jersey father in him was so proud.

"Good girl. You ready to go in, now?"

"Uh huh."

"Alright," Danny said, straightening up and rustling Grace's hair a little bit before holding out his hand for her to grab onto. "Let's go see how he's doing."

They'd barely stepped in the door before Grace was letting go of Danny's hand and not-quite-running-but-almost over to Steve's bed. Danny watched her go, but as his eyes settled on his lover, his stomach started to sink. He took in the ashen color of his face, the way his smile, genuine as it was at seeing Grace, seemed drawn, and how much he had to work to sit himself up to greet her, and it was like there was a knot in his gut.

Beside him, Chin, who had been the first one Danny could get a hold of that could come watch Steve for a while, tapped him on the shoulder with a look that said, 'I need to talk to you.'

Chin pulled him aside, over into the doorway where he could still kind of keep an eye on Grace – she was asking him how he was feeling, and he was in the middle of telling her how much better he felt now that he had such an awesome visitor, which would've been a lot cuter if he didn't look so sick – but where they could keep their conversation out of earshot.

"What happened?" Danny asked, his voice barely even a whisper. Steve looked like shit, but he was still Steve; he'd know they were talking about him if they weren't quiet. "He was fine when I left him."

Chin was frowning, his arms folded across his chest. He almost looked like he was in pain, too, but then, Danny didn't blame him. He probably looked about the same. "The last of his IV meds wore off, and as far as I can tell, the only thing the hydrocodone's doing for him is making him nauseous."

That wasn't what Danny wanted to hear.

"Jesus," he breathed, running his hands through his hair. "His fucking marathon this morning probably didn't help, either."

Chin's eyebrow ticked. A question, in not so many – by that, meaning none at all – words.

"The doctors wanted him to try to walk a little this morning," Danny explained. "Key word being 'little'."

"I'm guessing Steve didn't see it that way."

Danny shook his head. "He just can't do things by halves, can he?"

"Not as long as I've known him," Chin replied. "I flagged down a nurse, earlier. They're gonna try him on different meds, but it's gonna be a couple hours before they can give him anything else."

Danny just frowned deeper. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Steve trying to push himself up a little straighter as Grace chatted animatedly about this new project they had started in class, and about how cool it would be if, when he got better, they all went to the beach so she could get some shells for it.

Steve just smiled and nodded. Danny couldn't tell if it was because he didn't have the heart to tell her it would be a while before he made it to the beach, or if it was because he didn't want to admit to her that he was actually human. Sometimes, he thought Steve tried to be more than that, especially for Grace.

Hell, he was doing it now.

It occurred to him, too, that it needed to stop. He needed to figure out some way to get Steve some relief, and he couldn't really do that with Grace around. Not just because he didn't want her to know, but because it was going to be hard enough to get Steve to cop to being in pain without there being someone around he wanted to impress.

"Why don't I take Grace?" Chin said suddenly, as if reading her mind. "Rachel's is on my way."

"I happen to know for a fact that it's on the other end of town from your house."

Chin just shrugged. "I like to take the scenic route," he said, but then he sobered. "Steve needs you right now, brah, not me. So let me take Grace to Rachel's, maybe get some shaved ice or something on the way—"

"I can't ask you to do that."

With a sad sort of smile, Chin put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "That's the thing about ohana, brah. You don't have to."

And maybe it's another ohana thing, or maybe it's just a Chin thing, but he turns away just in time for both of them to pretend he didn't see Danny wipe tears from his eyes.


	10. Chapter 10

Danny took a few seconds to collect himself before following Chin over to the middle of the room. As he approached Grace, he caught Steve looking at him out of the corner of his eye, and he favored him with a smile that he hoped didn't look as forced as it felt.

Steve smiled back, and if Danny hadn't known him, he wouldn't have thought anything of it. But he did know him – the lines of pain etched in his face, the tense set of his shoulders, the way his jaw worked beneath the stubble on his cheek – so to him, it _did_ look forced.

He just hoped, for Steve's sake as much as Grace's, that she didn't know him quite so well.

Forcing his eyes away, he caught Grace by one of the shoulders and turned her around to face him. "Hey, Monkey, you remember Chin, right?"

Grace nodded.

"Well, he's gonna take you home to your mom's, if that's okay."

"Why can't you take me home?" Grace asked.

It was amazing how easily Grace could make him feel guilty. And the worst thing was, she wasn't even trying. Clearly, he was screwed when she hit her teenage years. "Well, because I've got to stay here with Uncle Steve and keep him out of trouble. M'kay, Monkey?"

She didn't look happy about it, but eventually, Grace nodded. Bless her heart, she was such a good sport. She even smiled as Chin introduced himself, and after giving Danny a hug and Steve a beam and a wave, she followed him out.

As soon as she was gone, Danny turned back to Steve.

The change in him was almost immediate.

It was like, all of the sudden, his battery was drained empty. He sunk down into the bed, his hitched breath coming out a little too much like a groan for Danny's liking. As his head fell back against the pillow, Danny was alarmed to see that there wasn't much contrast in color between the white of the pillow cover and Steve's face.

Part of Danny, in that moment, wanted nothing more than to run out and drag the nearest person in a lab coat in to _fix this_. But the other part knew that there was nothing they could do. Not for another couple hours. Some storms just had to be weathered.

Mercifully, they didn't have to be weathered alone.

"Hey," he said, laying a hand on his shoulder. Steve actually started at the contact, but Danny kept his hand in place, stroking his thumb over Steve's collarbone soothingly. "Easy, babe. Easy."

"Danny." Steve's voice sounded terrible: shaky and reedy, like it was a monumental effort just to grind out what he could. "You brought Grace."

Danny winced. "Yeah, sorry. If I'd known you were feeling so bad—"

But Steve shook his head. "No," he said. "Thanks for bringing her." He sounded genuinely grateful, too. Danny guessed it wasn't all that surprising – sometimes, he had a hard time wrapping his head around how much Steve had taken to Grace, and vice versa, but times like this, he was reminded how much his partner really cared for his daughter.

"Happy to." Turning, Danny grabbed the chair from beside the bed and pulled it up close. "So, where are we at on a scale of one to ten?"

Steve's eyes slid closed. "Seven." His voice hitched in the middle, and he grimaced, his eyes screwing up as he shifted, presumably trying to find a more comfortable position.

Unfortunately, something told Danny he wasn't gonna find one. "So, a ten, then."

"Nine."

Danny thought he was probably lying, but he wasn't going to argue. Not with Steve feeling so damn crummy. Instead, he let out what was supposed to be a calming breath. "What can I do to help, babe?" Because he wanted – _needed_ – to do something.

"Lower the bed?"

"What?"

Steve looked like he wanted to answer, but opening his mouth long enough to make words didn't seem high on his to-do list, so instead, he just lifted his hand and tapped it against the upper part of the bed.

Being the skilled, experienced detective Danny was, it wasn't hard to piece that particular puzzle together. "Kay, I got you. Just give me a second to figure out this—aha." Triumphant in his battle with this particular piece of medical technology, Danny mashed his thumb into the right little arrow on the panel on the bed to get the head to start lowering.

By the time the bed was more or less horizontal, there was practically no difference in the color of Steve's face and the color of the pillow case, and Steve's whole body was tensed so tight, Danny was just waiting to hear the _pop_ of every muscle in his body snapping from the strain.

He knew that wouldn't _actually_ happen, but that didn't make him feel much better.

"Alright." He cupped a hand to Steve's cheek. "You're alright." He didn't feel alright. Danny could feel him shaking, could feel how cool and clammy his skin was.

But then Steve turned his head away. He started trying to turn his whole body away, in fact, but he was turning onto the side he'd been shot, and Danny knew that wasn't a good idea, so he held him back.

"Hey, no. Believe me, babe; you don't want to do that. Just try to lie still."

Steve shook his head, though, and started turning onto his other side. His jaw was clenched tight, and part of Danny knew what the problem was before Steve even opened his mouth.

"Gonna be sick."

All the same, the confirmation was helpful.

"No," Danny said quickly. "No, you're not. Just lay back, breathe through your nose, all that jazz." He knew it wasn't that easy – he'd never actually had any problems with pain meds, personally – but he also knew that, if Steve was in a world of hurt now, it'd only get worse if he started throwing up.

Sadly, there were some things even Super SEAL couldn't control, no matter how nice Danny asked. He'd barely even managed a few more breaths before he was rolling over, a hand going out to push Danny back as he lost his fight with his tossing stomach.

Reflex had Danny jumping back, enough that he didn't get caught in the crossfire so to speak. As soon as he had, though, he was moving back in again, albeit a little closer to the head of the bed and to the side of Steve's street pizza.

"Can we get a nurse in here?" he shouted, before turning his attentions back to Steve. "Okay, okay." He put a gentle hand on Steve's back, rubbing small, soothing circles between his shoulder blades. "Just get it outta you, babe. You're okay." As he spoke, he made a conscious effort to breathe through his mouth. He hadn't thrown up since May 18, 1996, and he wasn't looking to break his streak. The problem was, it wasn't really the smell that was getting to him – it was the feel of Steve's sore muscles seizing beneath his hand, the knowledge that every one of those spasms battered broken ribs and abused an already-aching head.

By the time the nurse came in, nearly a minute later, Steve was mostly just dry-heaving. She came in, seemed to take stock of the situation, and then started to duck back out.

"Hey, hey, hey," Danny said. "Where—where are you going? Why are you leaving?" She hadn't done anything. She hadn't helped.

"I'm going to get his doctor," the nurse said. "And a janitor."

Danny subsided a little. "Oh." That didn't sound so bad. Actually, that sounded like a plan. "Okay."

The nurse favored him with a small smile that Danny was pretty sure was supposed to be reassuring, and then left the room.

Once again, Danny was alone with his ailing partner. It was hard to believe all this was because some meds didn't agree with him. But then, maybe that wasn't it, he thought. He wondered if Steve's marathon that morning might be catching up with him. Normally, he'd point that out, maybe give Steve a hard time for being stubborn and screwing himself over.

Now, though, he just sidestepped the puddle of sick on the floor and speedwalked to the in-room bathroom to wet a couple paper towels with some cool water before coming around to Steve's other side.

Steve flinched when the first paper towel touched his lip, but Danny caught his head with his other hand, cupping his cheek and keeping him still. "Take it easy, babe," he said gently. As soon as Steve's mouth was clean, he tossed the first towel in the trash and started running the other over Steve's sweat-sheened face.

Steve muttered something, his eyes peeling open to reveal two red-rimmed, glassy blues.

"I didn't quite catch that."

"I said, 'I'm sorry'."

"You're sorry?" Danny tried not to sound incredulous, but it didn't work. "Why are you sorry?"

"Almost threw up on you," Steve mumbled.

Danny resisted the urge to rolls his eyes, and instead favored Steve with a small smile. "Yeah, well, you know what they say: almost is only good for horseshoes and hand grenades."

To Danny's near bone-crushing relief, Steve actually managed a smile as well. It was tiny and strained, but it was a smile nonetheless. "Right," he said. He shifted his head a little bit, until the pillow seemed to set just right, and as Danny ran the wet towel over his cheeks and brow, his eyes slid closed again.

Danny winced as a cough rattled in his chest, but it didn't drag out or anything. It still seemed to hurt, though, and it got Steve restless again.

The janitor coming in only made it worse. Steve prized his eyes open again, and he tried to push himself up on the bed a little as the short older woman came in with her little cart of supplies.

Danny stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, holding him to the bed. "Where do you think you're going? Stay put," he said.

"Danny—"

"_Stay_."

Steve stayed. He didn't look happy about it, but with a paler, greener version of his "aneurism face," he sunk back into the bed and stopped trying to get up. For the sake of Steve's pride, they would both pretend that it was because he _chose_ to, and not because he just didn't have the juice to do anything but.

"Thank you," Danny said, Steve muttered something unintelligible in response – Danny didn't make him repeat himself this time – and closed his eyes. For a second, Danny thought he was pouting, but then he noticed Steve leaning into his hand, and he figured it was safe to say there were no hard feelings.

Steve didn't stir as the janitor finished her business and wheeled her cart out. To the outside observer, it might've even looked like he was sleeping. Closer inspection, though, revealed the sweat beading on his upper lip, the way his whole body alternated between trembling and impossibly rigid. So yeah, to the outside observer, he might've looked okay, but to Danny, he looked the farthest thing from it.

"Hold on," Danny said, even as he pried Steve's fingers from their death grip on the sheets; he laced his own through them and gave him a reassuring squeeze. "You'll be okay." Careful not to move him too much, he brought Steve's hand up and pressed a kiss to the back of it. "The doc'll be here in a few minutes. Just hang tight."

It was a sign of just how bad it was that Steve didn't even try to tell Danny he was fine or okay. He just tightened his fingers around Danny's – not enough to hurt, but Danny probably wouldn't have minded if it was – and breathed steadily through his nose.

With his free hand, Danny smoothed over the lines of tension from his boyfriend's furrowed brow. "You still with me?"

Steve's response was a hitched grunt, and to Danny's chagrin, he started shifting again. He knew Steve was just trying to find a more comfortable position, but Danny was positive by now that he wasn't going to find one.

"Moving's just gonna make it worse, babe," Danny told him. It came out sounding kind of like a sigh, and kind of like a plea. He just wanted Steve to stop hurting, and included in that was keeping him from hurting _himself_.

"Well, let's see what we can do to make it better."

Steve's eyes snapped open, and he gasped at the sound of a voice from the doorway. Danny was already ready to intercept him when his Super SEAL reflexes told him to sit up, and he kept a hand on his shoulder to hold him in place.

"Slow down, Speed Racer," he told him. "It's just the doc."

Sure enough, standing in the doorway was Steve's attending, Doctor Kaila Maheloa. She was probably a little older than Danny, slim and short, with dark hair pulled tight into a bun. On her face was a pleasant smile, and Danny felt a surge of relief.

"Alright, Commander, let's see what we've got here," she said as she rounded the bed, picking up the clipboard on her way to the newly-cleaned side. "Codeine not doing it for you, huh?"

"I'm good." There it was. Danny didn't know whether to be relieved or annoyed.

He settled somewhere in between. "Allow me to translate," he interrupted. "What he means is, no, it is definitely not doing it for him."

"I'm sorry to hear that." She actually did look sorry, too. "But we're going to get you sorted out right now, okay?"

"You can do that?" Danny asked. Chin had made it sound like there wasn't anything they could do. Which was nothing against him; Danny figured that was probably what he'd been told.

Doctor Maheloa smiled. "I certainly hope so," she said. "Otherwise, the PhD after my name's kind of a moot point." As she spoke, she flipped through Steve's chart, her eyes darting across various lines on different pages, until she finally flipped it all closed. "Okay, so I have some good news, and some bad news, Mister…"

"Danny. Just Danny."

She nodded. "Danny. So, the good news is, we can give him some Phenergan to help with the nausea and help him rest a little easier."

"That—that is definitely good news," Danny said. "What's the catch?"

"Well, it looks like we will be extending Commander McGarrett's stay for another day or two."

That got Steve's attention. "What?"

When he started trying to push himself up _again_ – Christ, Danny thought, he was like a jack in the box – though, Danny just shot him a look. "Seriously? Are you serious right now?" he said, and then he looked back up at Doctor Maheloa. "Ignore him – he's a lunatic. How soon can we make this happen?"

"I can get a nurse to come by in a few minutes. We'll probably keep him on IV analgesics the rest of the night and try him on Percocet in the morning."

"Why Percocet?"

"Well," Maheloa said, "according to his charts, that seemed to work alright for him when he was," she glanced at the chart again, "_hit by a car_?"

It was sad, Danny thought, that he almost had to ask which time she was talking about. He'd really only been _hit_ once, technically, on that Russian Embassy case, but he and cars had had a few run-ins in the past.

Instead, though, he just smiled and nodded. "Sounds good."

"No."

It seemed Steve had decided to rejoin the conversation, and both Danny and Maheloa looked at him. He'd used Danny's distraction to push himself up a little on his elbows, and it was hard to tell how much of the grim set of his face was determination, and how much of it was sheer willpower to keep from sinking back down or just passing the fuck out.

Because he looked like he was gonna. Pass out, that is.

Doctor Maheloa raised an eyebrow. "No?"

But Danny waved her off. "I'll take care of it," he told her. "If you could just send that nurse, that'd be great."

She eyed them for a second, a little skeptical, but she nodded all the same. "Someone should be by in a bit," she said. "Let me know if there are any problems."

Unless Danny was mistaken, there was a hint of amusement on the doctor's face as she left the room. However, he was too preoccupied resisting the urge to grab his stubborn lover by his shirt and shake some sense into him.

"What's a matter with you?" he snapped.

Steve's expression stayed firm. "I'm not staying."

"You aren't?" Danny feigned surprise, folding his arms across his chest. "Really? So, what? You're just gonna get up and _walk_ home? Is that the plan?"

"Kinda hoping you'd drive."

Danny let out an incredulous laugh. "Right, no, see, because I actually have this _thing_ where I don't like seeing people I love in pain and doing stupid things. So you can kind of see why I might have a problem with being your getaway driver."

Sighing, Steve slid back onto the bed. It seemed his show had spent the last of his reserves, because he was so white he was damn near transparent. "Danno, I'm—"

"Sick as a dog and sore all over?"

Steve's jaw clenched beneath the shadow of his stubble. "I was gonna say fine."

"I know you were, babe," Danny said. "That's the part that scares me."

More lines formed on Steve's forehead as he furrowed his brows. This time, though, it was more confusion, he thought, than pain. "Danny?"

It was Danny's turn to sigh. "I know you hate hospitals, Steve. I hate them for you. But you _cannot_ go home like this. You know this. So what we're going to do, is we're gonna stay here another night, get you fixed up with the good stuff, and in the morning, you're gonna take it easy, take your meds, and maybe I'll take you home. Capische?"

Steve's brows furrowed deeper, and for a second, Danny thought he was going to argue. But then, "'_We_?'"

Danny nearly groaned. All that, and that was what he bumped on. "_Yes_, we, you Neanderthal animal. Now be a good boy and take your medicine so I can stop worrying about you. I think I've got some new gray hairs from today."

"Still look fine to me," Steve muttered.

It was a hell of a way to do it, but Danny knew Steve well enough to know that was his way of throwing in the towel.

Not to say he was happy about it, of course. Steve pointedly kept his eyes closed when the nurse came in and emptied a syringe into his IV. He wasn't pouting, Danny didn't think. He pegged it more along the lines of the face he made when he was just too tired to be assed with anything else, so he just decided to block it out.

Danny could be okay with that.

Steve still looked like he was hurting for a while after that. Danny had taken the seat again on Steve's "good" side – the one that didn't have a bullet hole in it – and was absently brushing a hand through hair as he flipped through the sports page on his smart phone. He'd gotten a text from Chin a little while ago saying he'd gotten Grace home okay, which lifted a weight Danny hadn't realized was there off his shoulders.

Finally, though, Danny heard Steve's breathing even out, and when he glanced up from his phone, he saw his face had relaxed. _That_ was a weight he'd been well aware of, and as he pocketed his phone and stood, he felt it lift just a little.

Bending over the bed, he pressed a light kiss to Steve's brow. "Sleep tight, babe."

And then he sat back down, and went back to reading about UH football.


End file.
